The Economy Project
(2009-10-20)
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FORT COLLINS, CO
(KUNC) -
The city of Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority will complete the purchase of a $2 million warehouse by the end of this month. The goal is to create a rent-free space from which performance arts organizations will work.
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It's good news for Bruce Freestone, co-founder of Open Stage Theatre. He says earlier this year the curtain almost came down on Open Stage.
"For the first time in 30 years, we stood in front of our audiences and made an appeal to please send money, or there may not be another season," he says.
It's a similar story for many nonprofit art and theatre groups in northern Colorado and nationwide. Traditionally, these groups are money makers for local communities. In 2005, theatre shows and other performances in Fort Collins generated $16 million for downtown hotels, restaurants and shops, according to the town's Downtown Development Authority.
"What that broke down to was that for every dollar arts and culture organizations were spending to put on their performances, audiences were spending $2," says Matt Robenalt, executive director of the DDA.
Robenalt's group is hoping that a thriving arts culture will be a catalyst for consumer spending. This logic is fueling the purchase of a 28,000 square-foot warehouse property space, which will be open to struggling performance groups to cut down on their overhead costs. But the deal will only last for up to five years, at which point the DDA will review the program's success.
"The savings we're going to see on rents will be pumped back into the organization," says Bruce Freestone. He estimates it will save Open Stage Theatre more than $32,000 per year.
Affordable Space No. 1 Concern
Fort Collins is not the only town choosing to bolster the arts through real estate. Wendy Holmes, vice president of Minneapolis-based Artspace, a nonprofit real estate consulting group, says she's regularly contacted by communities that need help identifying and developing affordable spaces for artists.
"From the surveys we do across the country, we know that affordable space is the No. 1 concern of most arts organizations and individual artists," she says.
In spite of the recession, business at Artspace has been steady. Holmes' organization is assisting about 30 towns from New York City to Santa Cruz, Calif., with projects, including one in Loveland, Colo.
She says a lot of communities are trying to figure out how to reinvent their financial landscapes right now due to the economic recession.
"They're taking stock of what they have," she says. "They're thinking it's not necessarily mainstream industry that's going to drive our economy, and maybe having creative people is part of the solution."
Economic Stimulus?
While Holmes and Robenalt of the Downtown Development Authority say the arts can be an economic driver, not everyone in Fort Collins is sold on this argument. Steve Levinger, owner of the downtown Armstrong Hotel, and president of the Fort Collins Innkeepers Association, says he's in favor of supporting the arts. However, he says, in his personal experience he hasn't seen a direct payoff.
"When governments say, This is an economic stimulus,' the first thing we're looking for is, where are the numbers?" he says. "So for us, that's a little bit of a struggle because you can't really put numbers on that stuff."
Holmes of Artspace says her organization is conducting a study to understand exactly what happens to communities that use property investments to support the arts.
But Fort Collins will have to wait a bit longer for its results. Matt Robenalt of the DDA says in the next two to three years his organization will review ticket sales, attendance and other data to see if they're getting a return on their investment. © Copyright 2012, KUNC
